Saturday, February 19, 2011

A Good Week

I just found out I passed the Computer Science 8-12 teaching certificate test, so that was a great capper to the week. I'm not sure if we'll offer it next year due to a variety of reasons (budget cuts, small school, only put on the upper class-kid's choice sheets, so low enrollment,...), but maybe in the future we can offer it.

Also, we had professional development yesterday, and I went to 4 different math sessions that had good things to offer:

1. Found out the T^3 conference is in San Antonio next weekend. I've never been but am thinking of going. The PD presenter also mentioned some potentially good websites:mathbits.commathplayground.comeducation.ti.com/calculators/timath/

She also mentioned that there's this new feature on the calculators (don't know what operating system) where you can push 3 buttons at a time, and it disables the apps and such .... think TAKS test. It seems like an easier way than clearing ALL the memory and apps and then having to reload them. And then to get it back, you somehow link to another calculator and do something basic (forget what). It's called PRESS TO TEST, and you can probably google it and your calculator type to find out more.

2. The "Web 2.0 tools" talk showed some great websites as resources:mathvm.pbworks.com

this is a "warehouse" of math related sites and on the far right of the table there are videos that explain their usage/power.

3. I went to a "using stations in high schools" talk that just may get me out of my "rut" of doing things the same way all the time.

Wow, you are so lucky to have a professional development day that actually involves usable, subject-related professional development. Was this led by other teachers or were people brought in and oh my goodness I'm just bewildered.

Jonathan: the "stations" lady used hers to "manage" her class, but I see it also as useful for other situations, too. We'll see if I follow through.

Meg: Our central office has started asking various math teachers in our district to lead some workshops. Then they break it up into elementary, middle, high school type sessions. MUCH nicer than having "experts who are not teachers" come talk at us.

Congrats on the certification! Most of my dept will be attending T^3, but I have a prior family commitment so I won't be going. I usually just do CAMT anyway. This may be my last year to go to CAMT with all the budget cuts coming next year. If you get the opportunity, you should go this year. My good friend and I will be presenting. She is such an amazing teacher so I asked her to do a presentation with me this year on student engagement and motivation.

Thanks, Mrs. H. I DO want to go to CAMT, but it seems like I'm out of town every summer at just the wrong time. SO FAR this year I don't have anything planned that July block, so I'll cross my fingers. If I come, I'll definitely come to your talk.

Congrats on the additional certificaiton. Our district hires out so called "experts" for our professional developments. I think it would be a great idea to hire inside professionals who have great ideas to share. I think this would foster peoples creative in the district as well. If they know they could possibly be paid extra for coming up with creative ideas related to their content area.